Greens – Surveillance expansion goes ahead despite clear warnings

Surveillance expansion goes ahead despite clear warnings
22 Aug 2012 | Scott Ludlam
Broadband, Communications & the Digital Economy
The Government has combined with the Opposition to vote down Greens amendments to improve online privacy protections amidst yet another expansion of surveillance powers.

Australian Greens communications spokesperson Senator Scott Ludlam said the Cybercrime bill made it easier for police agencies to trap and share Australians’ private data with police forces around the world.

“With an inquiry into Government surveillance only just getting under way, this move is provocative, pre-emptive and typifies everything that is wrong with the way the balance is tilting against the rights of the individual,” Senator Ludlam said.

The Greens moved a range of amendments that would have established a criminal threshold for data collection, safeguards against facilitating the death penalty, and improving the oversight role of the Commonwealth Ombudsman. All were defeated.

“The focus moves to the national security inquiry, which has before it a set of proposals vastly more invasive than those passed today,” Senator Ludlam concluded.

Follow the debate at #natsecinquiry and #cybercrime

More details: http://scott-ludlam.greensmps.org.au/natsecinquiry

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